December | 2021 | Addams in Kyoto

Autumn, and you know what that means…yes, many, many photos of trees. So, welcome to the tree episode for 2021. In fact, this is the last episode for this year; let’s hope that next year is better for all of us.

For now, let us concentrate on trees for a while. Wonderful things, trees:- breathe in carbon dioxide, breathe out oxygen, some provide fruits and on top of that they are just plain beautiful, especially at this time of the year. Reviewing the photos for this episode, I noticed that they look quite different to last year, which was just an explosion of colour. This year the ‘colouring’ happened more slowly, with the trees changing in a staggered kind of way, with some fully in colour, some still to reach their peak and the rest had already passed their peak. The other difference this year is that the trees that aren’t deciduous are much greener than in the recent past. Obviously they enjoyed the massive amount of rain we had this year.

A quick report on the weather – it’s cold! Last time I said I thought I would be in a puffy jacket within the month, well, I have been wearing a puffy jacket for most of the time since then. Yesterday there was snow here, not much, but enough to cover the cars in the carpark across the road and to have a helicopter flying over our house before 7:30am – likely the media filming the snow on the hills. The max on Saturday was 6C. It is warming up a bit over the rest of the week, into the low teens, but back to sub-10C by Sunday.

Shortly after my last post we went out for a long walk, going back to Takao and following the Kyoto trail from there. This time we walked much further, with our total distance for the day being around 15km. It was a glorious day, slightly cool, but sunny and the Autumn colours were beautifully lit up.

We went back to Jingo-ji, the temple at the top of the hill accessed via a somewhat strenuous climb up many stairs (not sure how many, but it has to be well past 100 stairs), to see the Autumn colours there and to try to capture a photo of Craig throwing one of the kawarake disks out into the valley. Try, I said, because as you can see, I managed to capture Craig after he had released the kawarake and it had flown off into the valley. Ah well, there’s always next time.

???

No, definitely gone

One of the restaurants on the climb up to the temple

We walked a lot further along the river than we did last time, through beautiful scenery, and really enjoyed it. Some parts of the trail further along the river requires climbing over bigger rocks, and there was one part where you had to pull yourself up and over a rock using a rope attached to the hillside, but nothing really dangerous, though you definitely need a good pair of walking shoes. Some parts of the trail were a little soggier than last time, thanks to some overnight rain, but we managed to get through without getting our shoes too wet (or slipping).

The trail took us out towards the town of Kameoka, and, as a result, we ended up walking along the Hozugawa, the river we have traversed a few times in a boat. I didn’t make the connection, after we had passed through a tunnel, that the river we were walking along was the Hozugawa until I started hearing a familiar noise – the noise of the oar moving through the rope as the oarsman rowed. Sure enough, below us we saw the bow of one of the boats (the road we were on was a long way above the river level.

The tunnel, for cars and hikers…

I wasn’t sure if anyone on the boat could see us through the trees, but when I waved we had a number wave back, including the guys rowing and steering the boat. We saw a few more boats after that, as we walked along the road, waving and saying hello (ok, that was me…). The road we were on wound on, and once we had eaten our packed lunch, we decided not to continue on to Kameoka, but to go to the train station which would take us back to Kyoto station. Interestingly, it was the first station I have ever been to that was located on a bridge, between the tunnels through the hills.

The view from the station bridge – yes, there is a boat down there!

There were a lot more people traversing the trail this time, mainly because of the Autumn factor, but also The Virus numbers were way down, so people just wanted to get out. Much safer to go outdoors and get some exercise than sit inside somewhere surrounded in close proximity by potential health threats. Interestingly, there were a few hiking groups we passed, and a number of runners – yes, they were running the trail. Walking, hiking and running are definitely favoured pastimes here, for all ages.

During this period we took a few other walks, including a walk into town to buy some provisions, and we went for a walk to Fushimi Inari via the Kyoto trail with another acquaintance of ours who lives nearby. We had invited him over to dinner late in November to discuss the possibility of him trialling his idea for a restaurant, serving tapas (he is Spanish), using our venue for a few pop-up nights. He enjoys walking too, so we suggested walking to Mt Inari via the forest road, which he hadn’t tried before.

The walk into town

To Fushimi Inari and then Vermillion for a matcha latte (yum)

It was a lovely, sunny day again, and we would have gone to the top, but I had hurt my back (not sure how) and it involved a pinched nerve, so I decided climbing too many stairs may not be overly comfortable. Thankfully my back is nearly back to ‘normal’ and I can sit fairly comfortably again. Craig, on the other hand, appears to have damaged his hamstring and is struggling a bit. Must be the time of the year – our neighbour, Rachel, has also hurt her back!

There are a few more things to mention in this post, the first being ‘ii fufu no hi’, which essentially means good couple day in Japanese, occurring on 22 November. The name comes from a play on words for the pronunciation of the numbers 1-1-2-2 (the dates are ordered differently here, with the year first, then month, then the day). So, 1 in Japanese is ichi, and 2 is nichi, or futatsu, which then becomes i-i-fu-fu (if you shorten the words). Japanese people love plays on words, especially using numbers. In fact I actually did this to create Miro’s name, which is a play on ‘3 colours’ – 3 is san or mitsu and colour is iro, hence Miro (mi-iro squashed together). It was just pure chance that it is also the name of one of my favourite artists.

The next thing is another mention of one of our neighbours – Mrs Takeuchi. She is a lovely old woman (not sure how old, but I suspect she is in her late 80s, if not her early 90s). Recently we were tidying up our yard for winter and moving a few plants around. Anyway, we were near the front of our house and I was trying to dig into the ground in an area we hadn’t done much with before, ie it was very hard and full of stones, rocks, a brick, etc. Mrs Takeuchi was walking past and saw me struggling with the spade. She came over and said something to the effect that we would be better off with something we could use to break the ground.

As she rushed off Craig took over and had a bit more luck, managing to pull out a brick and a few other items. When she returned, she had two hoe-like tools, both of which were taller than she is (she is considerably shorter than I am). Anyway, she essentially told us to stand back and took to the ground with the three pronged hoe, and she wasn’t holding back!!! Within ten minutes she had done the whole garden bed and then made water channels around the plants we had put in the bed. She is incredibly strong, despite her stooped posture and short stature. Made us feel a little embarrassed – here we are, decades younger than her and we are standing watching her pound the ground with her gardening tools!

These are the kind of tools she returned with, but they had longer handles

The last thing I wanted too make mention of is our anniversary, which occurs on 15 December. This year we celebrated 30 years of marriage and 32 years together. Where did all that time go? We have been through so much together, yet it doesn’t seem that long to me. There have been good times, and bad, highs and lows, yet we have had each other through it all. Sometimes it’s me pulling Craig through, sometimes it’s Craig pulling me through. Together. My best friend. Mon amour.